Zandeji Chronicles: Redemption

Zandeji Chronicles: Redemption

Christopher T. Mooney

Copyright 2016 Christopher T. Mooney

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Zandeji Chronicles – Redemption is a work of fiction. Any semblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental, except for the Lord God and Savior of the universe.

Cover Image: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC and STScI

(http://www.spacetelescope.org)

Id: opo0928b

Type: Observation

Release date: 10 November 2009, 17:00

Size: 9725 x 4862 px

About the Object

Name: Sagittarius

Type: Milky Way : Galaxy : Component : Center/Core

Distance: 25000 light years

Constellation: Sagittarius

Category: Galaxies Quasars and Black Holes

Image used by permission (http://www.spacetelescope.org/copyright/) under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

For those who have turned from The Way; it is never to late to return.

For those who have never known The Way, I pray you will. Our world needs those on the path, more than ever.

For those following The Way, I pray that this book encourages you to put on the whole armor of God and fight the good fight.

Thank you, Jesus, for letting me struggle with your teachings in writing these books. I pray that you reach someone through them.

Thanks to Ann and Elise, two of the best editors, ever.

Discover other titles by Christopher T. Mooney

Zandeji Chronicles: Liberation

Zandeji Chronicles: Revolution

Zandeji Chronicles: Redemption

Visit www.mooneybooks.com for free stories:

Miami Knights: The Messiah

Miami Knights: I was blind...

Table of Contents

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37

EPILOGUE

About the Author

Other Books by Christopher T. Mooney

Connect Online

24

By faith we understand that the universe

was created by the word of Zotan, and these

things that are seen came into being out of

those things which are unseen.

– Sel Azaad, Letter to the church at Yeru-Azaad

The dropship yawed and pitched as the stresses and strains of atmospheric entry buffeted the craft. It had, however, been built to withstand these massive forces as well as protect its occupants from the stupendous heat generated by the descent trajectory designed to make planetfall as quickly as possible. The one thing it and the fleet of its counterparts were not designed to do was repel the anti-spacecraft fire that was being directed at them from the ground, orbital platforms and the interceptor craft that had been launched against them.

This resistance was not unexpected. The dropships were part of a much larger military operation that had begun in the Reilos system many standard days before. The fleet that had launched the ships had entered the system from fold-space in waves that had neutralized military outposts and listening stations by exiting foldspace well into the gravitational influence of the planets and moons that supported them. This had required calculations well beyond what most astrogators or astrogation systems were capable and had been worked out for each ship’s entry point to the system by a singular artificial intelligence named Alexis, the shipboard computer of the flagship of the fleet. This maneuver, while it had been repeated across the galaxy by the expeditionary forces of the Periphery Federation, was always a shock to defending forces as there was no way to predict when or where ships would emerge from fold-space.

Supreme Commander Shindoka Ace Maz Nova watched events unfold from the bridge of the Alexis. He had achieved his current position based upon the recommendations of the Vishans, a people originally from his homeworld and the people of Chandara VII, where the revolution had begun in earnest; as well as being recognized as a brilliant leader by peoples from a multitude of worlds now part of the Periphery Federation. While some were amazed that a seeming no-one had risen to such heights, there were a few who knew that Ace Nova had also been, nearly a thousand years before, the commander of the most feared and respected fighting force of his people, a force known as The Wraiths. He now held the title of Supreme Commander of the expeditionary forces as well as the rank of General in the Army of the Periphery Federation. Ace cared nothing for rank or titles now, all of this was just a means to an end for him. His true mission was not to liberate but to depose the Empress of the Nowa Empire and to restore his people from their thousand-year imprisonment, without corporeal form, in the bowels of a planet-wide biological computer. How he did this was left to him, the sole escapee from that prison.

Naturally, in this mission Ace had turned to his training. From the time he had been a youth, ten standard years of age, he had been groomed for military service. During his training, the instructors had recognized in him a very special mix of talents. Because of that mix, he had been selected to become what in his native language was called Zandeji, with the closest translation to Standard being, Clan Warrior. This placed him directly in the service of the Emperor or Empress which for thousands of years had been a member of the Nowa family. Ace reminisced that he had been told at the age of fourteen, when he entered their service, that only one in ten of all of the military personnel of the clans were selected to become Zandeji. He recalled his training that included everything from hand-to-hand combat to fleet operations as well as religion to interacting directly with the energies that Razion, his people's name for The Creator, provided in the universe. Ace was eventually recognized to be talented at a broad number of skills and recommended for The Wraiths, an elite unit within the already revered Zandeji. Less than five of every one-hundred Zandeji were selected to join the Wraiths. Within that organization, Ace was eventually field promoted to General. At one time he commanded the entirety of the loyal military forces of his people, in the first – and last – action that military had ever taken against the throne itself. The training he turned to now was that which had made him successful as the commander of The Wraiths. He had been well trained in how to execute an invasion and now used that training to its fullest.

A bright flash, far from the Alexis, but high above the world the fleet was assaulting, instantly brought Ace from thoughts of the past to thoughts of the present. A cacophony of chatter broke forth from the communications station, filling the small command deck with reports that one of the fleet's close-space support ships had been destroyed by the planetary defenders. The Alexis, in reality, was a small star voyager that was designed as a modular component to be joined to a larger craft designed for the operations being undertaken. Right now it was the command and control hub for the invasion fleet and was embedded as the primary bridge module for the flagship, Victorious, which served as a mothership for the dropships that were now raining onto the planet ahead. The mothership, not being originally designed for this symbiosis had been retrofitted to add the Alexis to its superstructure and allow her to become the control center for the larger ship's systems.

Listening to the reports coming in, Ace gathered that the bright flare was, in fact, the destruction of one of the ships that covered the descent of dropships to the surface of a planet. This meant that a group of the dropships out there was largely undefended as the invasion ships descended through the planet's atmosphere. While Ace cared what happened to every soul under his command, there was one specific dropship out there that concerned him the most, the one commanded by his protégé, and also his adoptive daughter, Siasha Mastik. It would do no good to check on her via standard communications as her dropship should already be entering the atmosphere; the ionization interfering with their equipment. That sort of interference did not matter to a Zandeji, though. Letting his mind and spirit flow into the other planes of existence, and along the tendrils of spiritual and emotional connections between the two, Ace could much more quickly interact with her.

On the command deck of the giant dropship, halfway along its descent to the surface of the planet below, Siasha held onto her acceleration chair in an attempt to minimize the vibratory pounding that she was currently enduring. As it would happen, the close-space support craft that had been destroyed was the one that was supposed to cover her craft during the assault. Even though Siasha was in command of the dropship, and its communications, she had no way of knowing that the support ship had been destroyed. When her craft was falling through the atmosphere, the severe ionization on the hull of the dropship prevented any sort of communication. Siasha could tell something was wrong, though, as she felt defenseless. It was almost as if there were a massive hole in the fleet of ships above them that were softening up the ground defenses as well as keeping any interceptor craft from reaching the nearly helpless dropships. No sooner did she feel that than she also felt a concerned probing coming from the direction of the invasion space fleet. She knew exactly who was fretting over her, as there was no one she knew of besides Ace Nova, her mentor and teacher, who could contact her in such a way. Siasha appreciated his concern, but ended up giving him a mental message that amounted to, 'Don't you have better things to do than check up on me?' The amusement she felt from Ace let her know that he was relieved and managed to also communicate that he knew she could handle herself.

And handle herself she could. Siasha Mastik had been helping wage this insurrection since it had started in earnest at the battle of Chandara VII. That she had been central to that battle and that she had survived still filled her with the feeling that Zotan, her people's name for the Creator of the universe, had plans for her that she could not even imagine. The way that Zotan had allowed her to stop her own execution proceedings mystified her and had been a miracle that others had rallied around as a signal that the Creator was on the side of the revolutionaries.

That had happened seven standard years ago when Siasha was seventeen and still very green in her abilities. Now at twenty-four standard years, she had much more control over the gifts that Zotan had given her and knew her place in the universe according to His design. She had quickly become a leader in the expeditionary forces, going from grunt to dropship commander through battlefield attrition and field promotions. As a commander, she was responsible for the dropship and all aboard from the time they disengaged from the mothership, through descent to the landing zone and up to giving the order for the troop-bay doors to open. She then became the battlefield commander for the units aboard the dropship, actually entering the combat zone with her troops. A dropship, along with the twenty person crew, could hold an entire company of soldiers, about two-hundred and fifty infantry, or less if the company had special supporting equipment like combat armor, armored vehicles or atmospheric craft. Siasha's unit was a light assault company comprised of two platoons of powered combat armor – a techno-exoskeleton that allowed a soldier to carry anti-personnel and anti-vehicle weapons that a regular soldier could not carry – and four platoons of infantry.

Siasha felt the dropship shimmy as an anti-spacecraft missile exploded near it. If they did not do something, quickly, the next one probably would not miss. There was also the real possibility that an interceptor would find them soon, and the nimble, trans-atmospheric craft would make short work of her unwieldy lander. All the more reason to be proactive in their defense.

Ship Command Channel, Siasha said to switch to the ship crew's command channel ECM, release decoys; Helm, evasive action – burn up the attitude thrusters if you have to; Fire Control, be ready for interceptors coming our way. The dropship was now no longer just shaking from the buffeting of air upon reentry, but was bouncing and shifting in an attempt to throw off the predictive targeting systems of anti-spacecraft fire. This dodging and juking was also designed to force interceptors to fly close, their own instrumentation unable to cope with tracking the ship, and give the lander's fire control team a chance to visually identify and neutralize incoming aggressors. Visual observations were essential to their survival as sensors were largely useless upon reentry. Siasha switched to the shipboard general command channel, Ship General Channel. All hands and combat personnel. We have lost our close-space support craft. Currently we are taking evasive maneuvers and watching for interceptor craft. She paused to look at her chrono, We will fire retro-thrusters in five standard minutes...mark.

With that, Siasha went back to hanging onto her seat. There was not much else she could do but keep an eye on the data-feeds that scrolled by in the small glass lens in front of her right eye that was connected to her headset. As she watched them, though, she had the oddest sensation of the sounds around her becoming very muffled, and the display began to swirl before her. Siasha closed her eyes and shook her head to try to clear it. Was there some sort of malfunction? Was there a gas flooding the cabin that was causing her to see things? When she opened her eyes again, though, she knew that it was neither and she was the only person aboard experiencing these sensations. Off in the middle of the command deck, Siasha saw a dark tree. She had seen this before in her dreams, but this time she knew she was still awake; evidenced by the fact that she was also experiencing everything that was still going on around her on the command deck. In fact, out of the corner of her eye she saw sparks slowly fly from a console and a fire blossom to life. She even registered dulled, slow shouting and the automated fire suppression systems filling the area with foam, but in a surreal manner. It was as if those things were the workings of her subconscious and the tree from her dreams was her real experience.

The ship darkened away and she was, as she had been so many times before, on a prairie with grasses blowing about. The wind was cold, though, nothing like the winds on Kesheron. Somewhere she vaguely heard the stretched words hull breech. She knew that the words meant something bad, and explained the freezing wind, but she could not think just what or how at the moment. Siasha did know, however, that if she looked to the sky, there would be no moons above her. Between her and the dark, barren tree, as always, the lupine creature waited for her. She found herself walking toward the creature, mildly wondering how she could do this since she had just been securely harnessed, but where? Siasha's brow furrowed in confusion at this thought as the creature, in the familiar pattern, moved toward the tree. This time, though, unlike before, as they approached the scorched earth around the tree a crackling sound jolted her and a lightning bolt struck the mighty specimen. Screwing her eyes shut, Siasha turned away from the blinding light. When she could finally look again, she fully expected to see the tree shattered. Instead, it had begun to burn with a fire that leaped out toward the creature and Siasha. Serpents of flame lashed out, catching the very earth on fire as well as the grasses outside the scorched area. Siasha knew that she and the creature needed to get away, to run from the fire, but she was rooted to the spot. Suddenly a geyser of flame shot toward her from the tree. She ducked away, trying to feel Zotan's power in the universe, to open herself to it and dissipate the energy being directed at her. Siasha, however, could feel nothing and knew that she was about to be engulfed in flames. Just then the lupine creature leaped up to fight the flame. Somehow it was able to drive it back at first, but then the flame split, flanking the creature. The lupine beast screamed with a pained, hideous yelp.

The waking dream ended as abruptly as it had begun when a blast of fire suppressing foam gushed over the fire and covered Siasha. The fire that had started at the weapons station to her right had raged throughout the command deck when the hull breech had been repaired by the emergency systems. Automated systems had flooded the deck with breathable air as the breech had been filled with a material that hardened quickly into a patch. This burst of combustible air, however, had caused the fire to reignite and it had flared up just in front of Siasha before the suppression systems were able to bring it back under control. Siasha coughed, realizing that she had been inhaling smoke and that her throat felt burnt. Her voice was scratchy, but she managed to eke out, Ship Command Channel. Stations report. The responses came quickly, but in an organized manner. Siasha had worked with this crew for over a standard year, and they knew what she expected of them by way of discipline.

Ship’s controls are operational. We are still descending along planned trajectory. Retro-thrusters have fired and we are in final descent to the LZ. Three standard minutes.

Engineering. All systems are operating nominally. Some problems with the command deck computers, but backups have come online.

Damage control. Fire and hull breech mitigated. Almost all damage was contained on the command deck.

There was a silence in Siasha's headset that became ominous with the heavy roar of the retro-thrusters firing in the background. Siasha got a horrible feeling and looked off to her right at the Weapons Officer's station. The retardant foam could not completely hide the charred forms of the Weapons Officer and the Electronic Countermeasures Officer. The flare-up must have happened after the initial fire retardant had been deployed, as it appeared to have scorched and melted over the two forms. Siasha closed her eyes and uttered a short prayer for their souls then spoke again, Engineering, route fire control functions to me.

Commander, we are on final descent. The LZ has been sighted and we look clear for landing, the Pilot spoke up.

Very well, put us down, Lieutenant, Siasha responded.

The retro-thrusters howled as the ship hovered over the landing site, engine assemblies moving out from the side of the ship to stabilize it. Still almost twice its own height from the ground, the craft began to slowly descend on streamers of star-fire. It had no sooner settled in altitude to its own height when there was a flare from one of the four thrusters An explosion shook the craft and the thruster flew off; an independent, smoking projectile that corkscrewed off into the surrounding forest. It started a blaze among the trees that poured obscuring smoke into the clearing where the drop ship was attempting to land.

The dropship struggled to the ground as the three remaining thrusters vectored their exhaust to compensate for the missing fourth. It finally set down with a jarring thud that bottomed out the compensators on Siasha's seat and rattled her teeth. A pain in one molar prompted her to probe it with her tongue, revealing that she had a chip out of it. Oh well, if that and a sore rear were the only injuries she sustained today, then she had nothing to complain about.

Other than the creaking of the superheated structure of the landing craft as it cooled from atmospheric entry, the command deck of the dropship was nearly silent after the avalanche of noise from the retro-thrusters. Siasha looked around and muted her headset microphone.

Everybody, alright? She asked.

A chorus of affirmatives came from around the deck. Siasha took stock of the state of her crew. For the most part they were covered in black soot and it looked like bruises and burns were to be had all around, but other than the ECM and Weapons Officer, the rest of the command deck crew would likely fight another day. Of course, the day was just beginning. Landing on this world was only the first step. Now, Siasha needed to capture the objectives assigned to her company for the invasion to succeed.

Siasha swung a clear, concave shell directly in front of her seat and just above her lap. As it locked in place, a holographic display formed in front of her. Reaching down into the display she deftly manipulated the phantom objects there, reviewing the tasking orders that she had already memorized and taking stock of new information coming in over her restored uplink to the battle network. As she was afraid of, it looked like other dropships in her battalion had been destroyed during descent. Manipulating the three dimensional maps, she could see that her area of responsibility had been expanded about as far as her company could handle, and they would be stretched thin. Siasha was in the middle of acknowledging her new orders and re-arranging her platoon leaders' deployment tasks when a buzzing in her headset alerted her to a ship's station reporting in.

Blaze Actual, She identified herself to the person reporting in.

Actual, this is Battery Three, I'm seeing some movement out at the treeline. They're using smoke for cover, but it looks like there's a platoon out there setting up anti-ship and anti-armor weapons.

Ship Fire Control. All weapon batteries, we need to disperse enemy units that are to the port side of the ship. You may fire at will.

No sooner had she given the order than the ship reverberated with the concussive force of the gun batteries opening fire on the enemy troops. Siasha quickly completed her plans thinking, 'They will probably change five times today anyway,' and proceeded to stand.

Lieutenant Rajan, Siasha spoke to the dropship pilot, you're in charge.

Yes ma'am, he replied, good hunting!

Siasha smiled grimly, Razion willing, the day will be ours.

The pilot and the rest of the command deck crew made the triangular sign of Razion, their name for God. Siasha's crew and most of her company were Vishan, a people group that had apparently originated on the same homeworld as Ace Nova but